There are many amazing artifacts that reach to our country’s founding in the White House. One thing I like to focus on is the mantle, located in the president’s dining room. During the Truman reconstruction, the 1902 mantel was replaced with a green marble mantel. The 1902 mantel was restored during the Kennedy renovation and includes the inscription placed there by Franklin Roosevelt, from a letter by John Adams to his wife written immediately after he first moved into the house in 1800:

I pray Heaven to bestow the best of blessings on this House, and all that shall hereafter inhabit it. May none but honest and wise men ever rule under this roof.